Beryl had found some info on Bullara Station which was on the way to our next stop, Exmouth. The station had MEAT for sale which was an immediate attraction for Matt and Sharon – the rest of us were keen to have a look at the station and check out its famous café….

We packed up and left Coral Bay driving the 50 minutes there along the Minilya-Exmouth Road – passing the myriad of termite mounds along the way.

On our arrival the place was extremely busy….

the station had done a great job of setting out the grounds… there were horses, sheep and cattle wandering around….

Great signage and lovely artwork…

the café was inside the old woolshed and was full of rustic paraphernalia…

Matt scoped out the location to buy meat and he and Sharon hurried off first….

sneakily followed by Klaus and Beryl… to see what meat was on offer…. Unfortunately, they had sold out of everything except rump steak – Matt still made a big purchase….

We enjoyed delicious homemade sausage rolls, pies and scones with coffee and sat around enjoying the ambience for a while…

As we drove out of Bullara, a large road train pulled onto the highway in front of us…. another big thing to pass!!

At Exmouth we made our way straight to the Ningaloo Exmouth Caravan Park where we were booked in for the next 3 nights and set up – the sites were a little tight for some with the position of a couple of trees… nevertheless they were great level sites, and we were soon set up.

After a bite to eat Klaus, Beryl, Matt, Sharon, Trev and I decided to spend the afternoon going to Shothole Canyon and Charles Knife Canyon – both located close to Exmouth in the Cape Range National Park. Kerry and Gordon chilled in the van and Rose and Dave took a drive in to check out the shops…

As we drove out to the canyons it was had to imagine that they would be anything of significance as the area was so arid, flat and dry….

Shothole Canyon is so named due to the large number of shotholes in the canyon wall caused by seismic drilling activities by WAPET looking for oil in the region in the 1950s. A small deposit was found – this was the beginning of the Australian oil industry – the reservoir was so small it was abandoned, but oil was discovered at Barrow Island off the WA coast in the 1960s and the Australian oil and gas industry was then truly established.

We drove along deep into Shothole Canyon along the dirt road admiring the impressive rock formations and cliff faces…

shotholes were very obvious all along the way…

the colours of the rock faces changed from red to yellow, white, brown and black – contrasting with the green of the bush foliage and blue sky it made for a beautiful scene…

At the end of the road was a parking area and a short walk to a lookout down the canyon… we climbed up the steps and walked along the ridge to the end….

We had to exit the gorge the same way we came in and then hit the main road to drive further on to Charles Knife Canyon which was named after Charles Knife, one of persons who surveyed the road into the area for the WAPET drilling teams…

The canyon was spectacular – we drove up to the top for breathtaking views down along the canyon itself and you could see the coast in the distance… it was far more spectacular than we had expected – the canyon rises to 320m above sea level and is 13km long and 20 km wide…

After taking some pics…

….and Matt and Sharon taking their obligatory selfie…

….we drove further on to the Thomas Carter lookout… and came upon a solitary motorcyclist camped at the top – he was on his way to Karratha and was just staying the night….we had a chat to him then kept going as the view from the lookout was no where near as impressive as the top of Charles Knife Canyon…

The canyons on the way back down were amazing at every turn… we stopped for a couple more pics before returning to Exmouth…

Back at camp we had happy hour in the camp kitchen area – then Matt and Sharon got organised for tomorrows early rise and journey back to Coral Bay for the whale shark swim…